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What, exactly, is the purpose of Congress? In the second Trump administration, it is difficult to tell. The authority to declare war, long considered a vital legislative power, has turned into a unclear right of the executive branch in the years since September 11; Trump, in the past few months, has asserted even more of that control for his administration, conducting strikes on vessels in the Caribbean.

The power of the purse seems to have mostly been stripped from the legislative branch too; currently, under the leadership of budget chief, the OMB director, much of the ability to allocate federal funds has likewise shifted to the presidency, with the White House claiming the authority to abort congressionally authorized spending and attempting to redirect the money elsewhere. It’s as if they’re passing any legislation, anyway; almost all legislation must currently be crammed into budget reconciliation bills, massive perennial essential omnibus legislation that can circumvent the filibuster. But when those don’t pass – and increasingly, they don’t – the federal government simply shuts down. That is, large sections of the government shut down – and it’s uncertain how many citizens notice. At present, the government has been closed for the entire month; there are no signs of it reopening anytime soon. But the presidency continues humming along.

And so the issue of dominance of the House and Senate can appear rather moot. Why should U.S. citizens be concerned who holds a majority in a body that has mostly abolished itself?

How ‘oppose the president’ messaging could assist California’s Prop 50 succeed

And yet Prop 50, California’s ballot measure on district boundaries that could deliver five additional congressional positions to the Democrats if it is approved by the electorate in a special election next month, has seized the political imagination of progressives across the country. In part, it is a delayed response to trends happening in other states: Republican-controlled states have for a long time adopted dramatic partisan gerrymandering while big Democratic-controlled such as the Golden State, New York and Washington draw their maps via impartial independent commissions, an asymmetry that has led to narrowly split control of the House and a long-term feeling, by Democrats, that their political group is bringing a knife to a gun fight. The state measure is explicitly designed as a countermove to a mid-decade redistricting that recently passed in the Lone Star State, which installed boundaries that will give Republicans an additional five seats in the state congressional delegation next year; comparable boundary changes are under way in states such as Missouri and the Hoosier State. (The left in Virginia are also emulating California’s lead in seeking to alter districts.)

The California measure seems likely to pass, as progressive electorate respond with fear and anger to Trump’s autocratic centralization of authority and seek methods to check his most extreme tendencies. But the proposition is not without debate. Some critics warn that the action could backfire, with Democratic-controlled states’ attempts to change districts triggering a revenge pattern in which red states do additional to draw their maps so as to foreclose any possibility of opposition party success. Others have questioned the proposal on strictly ideological democratic grounds: a district that is drawn in such a way that the result of the election is not in doubt, they say, is one that cannot be said to be truly democratic: it means, necessarily, that the power of dissenting views is suppressed, and that the procedure of debate, argument and persuasion that is supposed to define a healthy political system will be limited only to primary elections, if it happens at all.

It is worth considering each of these objections on their own terms. The initial argument, that the measure will provoke conservatives to redraw their own districts in response, does not hold up as a logical argument: it is illogical to claim that the GOP will be compelled to behave in undemocratic ways by Democrats’ actions when they are already engaging in such behavior without those steps. The GOP, it can be noted, has not needed any incentive of retaliation to redraw boundaries that secure long-term positions for themselves: they have been willing to do this for their own benefit, in the complete absence of Democratic reciprocation, for years.

The second critique, I think, is more substantive, reflecting not just a tactical disagreement about how to address the Republicans’ undemocratic turn, but a kind of sad desire for a different country than the one that the United States has become. It is accurate that in a more ideal world – in the world that the majority of Democrats, it is believed, desire and hope for – the proposition would be unappealing to our values, and not required by our situation. It is undesirable to pack and crack disfavored demographics; it is harmful for politicians to select their constituents, instead of the other way around; it is negative that elections are rendered noncompetitive. That these actions have grown essential in order to impede the authoritarian advance of the president’s control and reduce the level of harm he is able to cause is unfortunate; it is a sign of how far we have fallen from a state more like a representative government. But they are required. It is only once the fight against the current administration’s ideology has been won that we can lament what fighting it has made us.

If the legislative branch does not in practice have lawmaking, military or appropriations authority, what is it, exactly, that the proposition’s five new Democratic house members will be sent to Washington to do? One thing that Congress continues to retains is subpoena power, and the ability to investigate. Even in our time of stagnant politics and legislative decline, it has utilized of that authority to great effect. In the coming years, if the measure passes and the state’s new Democrats are take office, they will become a part of a body with the power to probe the president, to broadcast their hearings into his conduct and to compel members of his close advisors to testify. It’s significant, and crucially, it’s not something that any Republican would do.

• Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist